folo

Is here. It’s been a long day.  More about it later.

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And 20 minutes, at least here in the Eastern timezone. Well, this news might make you feel a little better (or would if you trust Mike McConnell at all, which I don’t). Wouldn’t it be intriguing to know what the one or two things-we-wouldn’t-guess turn out to be?

In related news, if you don’t watch MSNBC, you probably joined me in missing Rachel Maddow’s interview with Obama last night. Now that I’ve seen it, I can say it’s a much chewier Q&A than any I’ve seen, certainly to include the debates.

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What a shout-out to Nate Silver and 538! Garry Trudeau has submitted next Wednesday’s Doonesbury — celebrating an Obama win.

So what prompted the cartoonist to “call” the outcome of the election? Trudeau tells Comic Riffs today: “If I didn’t call the election, I’d have no premise for the week and be forced to write about something else. I didn’t want to write about something else. This is history.”

Did Trudeau then create the strip with complete and utter confidence that Obama will win? “Nope, more like rational risk assessment,” Trudeau explains. “Nate Silver at Fivethirtyeight.com is now giving McCain a 3.7% chance of winning — pretty comfortable odds. … Here’s the way I look at it: If Obama wins, I’m in the flow and commenting on a phenomenon. If he loses, it’ll be a massive upset, and the goofy misprediction of a comic strip will be pretty much lost in the uproar. I figure I can survive a little egg on my face.” …

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Dang, what a time for the great Chicagoan to go.

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Think Camp McCain got to Larry Eagleburger?

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Fresh email:

I figured the Diaz folks were done with new teevee stuff, but I just got this “closing argument”-type ad that will apparently be going up this weekend.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cA4EdXV4oiI

His campaign finance report was available at the SOS website for the first time (I think) today, and given his sizable cash-on-hand advantage over Pierce now and the decisions of Comcast and WLOX to yank the LEAA ad, Diaz will probably have a substantial advantage on the airwaves this weekend.

I tried to find that report but must not know how to ask right. If any of y’all see it, please sing out.

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Novelist John Irving, interviewed by the Nashville Scene, glides from bestsellers to Sarah Palin as hilariously as possible (h/t Sullivan):

… The bestseller list in the U.S. doesn’t only reflect what we read. That list is a reflection of how backward we are as a culture. We are anti-intellectual, we don’t value the arts, and we don’t sufficiently support education. President Bush made sounding stupid actually comforting to many Americans. Look at the rush of instant identification that many Americans felt for Governor Palin; she was mean, she was poorly informed, she spoke badly. I said to my wife, after watching Palin’s debate with Senator Biden, that I could only think of one question that woman might not duck–one she actually might answer, even with enthusiasm. Here’s the question. I have never field-dressed a moose, but–in my deer-hunting days–I have field-dressed deer, and I would have liked to ask the perky Alaskan if the process is more or less the same. (Only a lot bigger!) I could easily imagine Gov. Palin’s eyes brightening; an onslaught of pre-orgasmic winking might have ensued. "Ya know," she might have begun, "ya just gotta make a big slit from the critter’s brisket to its crotch, and ya gotta reach way the heck up and grab hold of the rectum. Ya can’t let the feces fall out and get all over the meat, ya know. But there’s really nothin’ to it. It’s just a moose–it’s not a Russian, or somethin’!" I think that pretty much covers what the governor might say in answer to that question, except that she probably wouldn’t use the feces word–if ya know what I mean.

You betcha.

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Word from Gallup suggests that the Wednesday night informercial improved Barack Obama’s standing in the polls — as John McCain’s takes another dip. Gallup’s latest three-day sampling occurred Tuesday-Thursday, October 28-30, among three distinct groups: “traditional likely voters” (those who say they’re apt to vote and Gallup knows to be previous voters), “expanded likely voters” (those who so identify themselves but Gallup doesn’t know to have voted previously), and “registered voters” (self-explanatory).

Among the traditional-likelies, Obama’s new eight-point lead, 51-43, is the best it’s ever been.

Since Tuesday, McCain’s support among traditional likely voters has dropped by four points (from 47% to 43%), Obama’s has risen by two points (from 49% to 51%), and the percentage of undecided voters has increased from 4% to 6%.

Among the expanded-likelies, Obama now leads by nine points, 52-43, and among all registered voters, by 11 points, 52-41 (up three from the previous day). As Gallup explains (and I bold):

Obama’s favorable position among traditional likely voters in the latest polling is partially reflective of his strong position among all registered voters. However, at other times when Obama has led McCain by 11-points among registered voters, his likely voter advantage has been lower than it is now, in the five- to seven-point range. Thus, Obama’s improved likely voter standing also reflects a higher turnout propensity for his supporters than what Gallup has seen at earlier times this month. This could stem from the superiority his well-funded campaign appears to have over the McCain campaign in contacting his supporters to get out and vote.

(See Matthew Mosk in WaPo, or even more tellingly, Sean Quinn at 538, for why direct supporter-contact only gets worse for McCain from here on in.)

Not having a Rasmussen subscription myself, I bum from a Kos diary the data Rasmussen reported this morning:

Ad Make You More/Less Likely to Vote for Obama?

More Likely:  54%
Less Likely 24%

Among McCain Voters:  8% More Likely

Among Conservatives:  39% More Likely

Among Republicans:  21% More Likely

Among Men:  50% More likely

Among Women: 59% More Likely

Among 65+:  57% More Likely

Among Whites: 50% More Likely

Thus, it’s nigh onto impossible to credit Camp McCain’s claims of a tightening race — especially with an Obama ad now quoting McCain‘s military advisor and Ronald Reagan’s chief of staff Ken Duberstein now endorsing Obama.

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The only thing that makes me think he might be telling the truth is the excremental campaign he’s running.

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Camp Obama’s David Plouffe talked about early turnout this morning, but reports so far are frustratingly mushy. Ben Smith at Politico says:

On the conference call, David Plouffe made the case that in key states — including Florida, North Carolina, Nevada, Georgia, and New Mexico — the race is already well on its way to being decided, because so many people have voted early.

“We’re sort of out of the land of theory in a lot of these states,” he said. “You’re starting to see how the election is going to unfold.”

Plouffe touted number suggesting that new and sporadic voters are showing up for Obama, a key factor.

Smith’s report is the most frustrating, thanks to a dead link in the sentence “You can see the staggering early vote numbers here.”

The Hill‘s Sam Youngman adds,

"The die is being cast as we speak," Plouffe said. He added: "Sen. McCain on Election Day is not just going to have to carry the day but carry it convincingly."

Plouffe expressed confidence in Obama’s ability to win Florida, where polls show Obama narrowly leading a tight race.

Plouffe argued that, if “trendlines continue,” Obama will win the state’s Hispanic voters, a tremendous turnaround after 2004 Democratic nominee Sen. John Kerry lost that demographic to President Bush by double digits.

The campaign manager noted that the campaign would only run the positive version of the two "closing argument" ads in Arizona, adding that "if someone else had been the Republican nominee, I think Arizona would be [the] core battleground."

Plouffe declined to offer overall turnout projections, saying the campaign thinks those numbers are of “strategic value.” He did say he thinks the projection of McCain’s lead pollster Bill McInturff earlier this week — a staggering 130 million voters — is low.

“We think it’s higher than that,” Plouffe said.

Okay, finally — here’s Marc Ambinder of The Atlantic with some specifics:

** In NV,  43% of Democrats who have voted early are new or sporadic voting Democrats

** In NC, 19% of Democrats who’ve voted early are Democrats who’ve never voted in a presidential election before

** Says Plouffe: “We are going much better with Hispanic voters in Florida than certainly was the case in 2004 and we believe in 2000. Puerto Rican voters, Columbian voters, and doing surprisinglky well with younger Cuban voters.”

** “In Florida, a quarter of sporadic voting Democrats are turning out out that the same rate as very likely Democrats.”

** Said the McCain campaign is spending 5,000 points worth of advertising in the Tampa television market.

Hmm, wonder whether that dead Politico link has the numbers Ambinder cites or other ones. I also wonder why Plouffe might be saying this. Maybe he intends to dispirit GOP turnout with this “you’re toast” theme — but couldn’t it just as easily lull too many Dems?

Whoop, more just hit the Orlando Sentinel:

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said Friday a key objective has been turning out some 1.6 million "sporadic-voting" Florida Democrats and estimated about one-fourth of them had cast ballots.

"We’re thrilled by that," Plouffe said.

The campaign thinks about 40 percent of the total turnout it expects in Florida had already cast ballots. Through Wednesday, nearly 3 million of Florida’s 11.2 mllion registered voters had either cast ballots early or via absentee.

So far, 205,000 more Democrats had voted than Republicans.

He also said while Hispanics and African-Americans were turning out in droves to early vote, he was "confident that we’ve got a lot of good voters left."

An Orlando Sentinel analysis this week of the early votes cast over the first nine days showed more than one in five early voters — 22 percent — was black, though blacks account for just over 13 percent of the electorate. …

However, the Sentinel adds,

… young people were turning out in disproportionately low numbers.

Though they make up nearly 25 percent of the total electorate, voters younger than 35 accounted for only 15 percent of early voters in the analysis.

Gah, kids.

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